(no subject)

When Fry came to his Garden Box project on Monday, he was pleasantly surprised to find next to it his own little set of tools - a spade, a fork, and a little bucket, all in blue with his name on.

There was just one problem. He looked at the gift tag, then looks up to see Pixie approaching her box.

"Hi." he says. "Um, this is kind of you but we're meant to make our own tools out of recycled things."

"I know." Pixie sighs, blushing slightly. "My dad didn't know and he bought them for the whole team."

"Oh." Fry says. "Can I take them home and use them to garden there?"

Pixie brightens up, and nods at this suggestion. Then looks over his shoulder, for reasons Fry doesn't quite understand until he hears footsteps behind him.

"Hey." Peter says, sloping up to them. "You guys are really into this garden thing, right?"

"Yes." Fry nods, as Pixie has clammed up again. "We like growing things."

"I want to make you a deal." Peter says.

"Certainly." Fry gets his garden book out to record the transaction. Peter looks briefly disconcerted, but decides to go ahead.

"Look, I'm having to stay in at break a lot because Miss Havisham keeps me in for not doing my homework." he says. "And I can't really be bothered with this box thing. I heard you saying you've got two hundred and fifty lettuce seeds. I know you're trading some, but you'll never have room to grow many in that box, even if you pick them small. So I want to rent you my box for the rest of the term."

"Rent it?" Fry asks.

"Yeah." Peter says. "You get to use my space to grow some of those lettuces, but I get half what you grow from it."

Fry considers this.

"Deal." he says. Then, contemplatively. "Peter, wouldn't it be easier to just do your homework at home?"

Peter shrugs. "I don't have a bedroom any more, whether I'm at Mum's or Dad's. The step-brats are always watching tv or playing video games and it's just easier to join in."

"Why don't you join after school club and do your homework there?" Pixie asks. Peter looks surprised that she actually talked to him, but then shrugs.

"That's not a bad idea." he says. "Thanks Pix."


Peter had expected Miss Havisham to not be very pleased with him for getting out of his gardening, but he wasn't an imaginative liar, so he freely admitted renting his box to Fry and waited for the explosion. With not a small amount of trepidation. Before the start of term, he and his parents had come in for a meeting with Miss Havisham. It was the first time in several months his parents had sat in the same room for more than a few minutes without a lawyer.

"Peter needs to turn around his life." Miss Havisham had said, as Peter squirmed in front of her. "No more truancy, all homework must be completed. This is your second chance, Peter."

"Must he repeat year four?" his Mum had asked.

"I have discussed it with the headmistress and Mr Irons, who works with struggling students, and we feel that Peter has missed too much work. His attendance last year was only sixty four percent." Miss Havisham said. She turned to Peter. "I have asked you to come today to impress on you the seriousness of your situation. You are nearly ten years old, you are old enough to understand. You are in a mess, but you are in the sort of mess that can be turned around, with hard work." She pauses. "Most messes can be fixed, in time."

She'd made Peter and his family agree that he would do every homework assignment for the year, that she would speak personally to his parents any time he was absent, and that he would make effort in class. It was the third of these that was currently on his mind.

But there isn't an explosion. On admitting what he had done with his garden project, Miss Havisham smiles and turns to the blackboard.

"Since you won't be doing any gardening this term Peter, your homework tonight is to find out what the Feudal System was, and tell the class."

"You're not cross?" Peter blurts out.

"I told you to produce as much food as you could with your box." Miss Havisham says. "There was nothing in the rules that said you couldn't hire another farmer."

Fry smiles slightly. He'd known perfectly well that Peter wouldn't get done for cheating - the secret guide to Miss Havisham's class he'd read had a whole page on the garden box project.

By the end of the second week of the project, kids started trading autumn seeds. George invented a plastic bottle irrigation system which she shared with her group - which now included Maisie, who had been put off Bethany's group by the war she had declared on Miss Havisham.

Bethany wasn't getting on with Miss Havisham at all. Having been appointed Tidy Monitor, she had forgotten to do her duties four times, and lost her homework diary and misplaced her dictionary in the first week. Miss Havisham had not been pleased.

"Bethany, all you have to do is ask everyone in the class to put their chairs up at the end of the day and tidy away any litter." she said. "Please try harder next week."

She hadn't awarded Bethany the week's credit on the chart for doing her monitor work. Bethany had openly declared war.

"Who cares about the stupid chart?" she complains one afternoon. "Only the swots."

"The swots and Tommy." Lucy points out.

"Yeah, for some weird reason." Bethany snorts.

"Maybe the swots should do your tidy monitor work." Lucy suggests.

Bethany grins, an idea suddenly forming. She nips inside to find something, then goes through the playground to find Fry, who is on his own spinning around in circles in a corner.

"Hey Fry." she says sweetly. "Do you want to earn some extra credit?"

"Yes." Fry says, stopping spinning and looking round.

"Miss Havisham said she'd give ten credits to someone who sweeps the floor." Bethany says. "But they have to get all the dust out of the cracks with this paintbrush. I can't be bothered, but I hear you're really into earning credits..."

"Ten credits? I'll do that!" Fry says eagerly, accepting the paintbrush and going straight inside.

Bethany grins, pulls her camera phone out of her pocket, and after a minute follows him.